Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Forty years ago, Marina Silva was a
maid washing dishes in the jungle city of Rio Branco. Today, she
is a presidential contender, counting on her personal history to
appeal to poorer Brazilians even as she adopts economic
positions friendly to business leaders and investors.

Silva’s entry into the contest as a replacement for Eduardo
Campos after he died in a plane crash has upended the race, with
polls showing her attracting previously undecided voters. To
win, she needs to do more: siphon support from President Dilma
Rousseff among the poor, who have benefited from 12 years of
social welfare under the ruling Workers’ Party.

Silva’s pledges to slow inflation, grant central bank
autonomy and undo fiscal policies that led to a sovereign credit
downgrade target a different audience: supporters of Senator
Aecio Neves, who appeals mostly to more affluent Brazilians. Her
personal background positions her to meld this economic-growth
agenda with an appeal to poorer voters, said Rafael Cortez, a
political analyst at research company Tendencias Consultoria
Integrada.

“She’s an alternative to the two poles that dominated
Brazilian politics for the past decades,” he said. “She has
real chance of winning.”

Voters surveyed by Datafolha who said they were undecided
or would cancel their ballot fell by 10 percentage points to 17
percent from July to August, the first poll to include Silva.
The coalition led by Campos’s Brazilian Socialist Party, or PSB,
selected her as its candidate Aug. 20.

Trailing Rousseff

Silva, 56, is statistically tied in second place with Neves
with 21 percent and 20 percent support respectively while
trailing Rousseff by 15 percentage points ahead of the Oct. 5
election, according to the Aug. 14-15 survey that has a margin
of error of plus or minus two percentage points.

Forty-three percent of respondents who earn no more than
1,448 reais ($636) a month, or two minimum wages, support
Rousseff, according to the poll. That compares to 18 percent for
Silva and 14 percent for Neves. The incumbent has only 18
percent backing among the wealthiest income group, which earns
more than 7,240 reais a month, compared to 27 percent for Silva
and 38 percent for Neves.

Silva started the race last week by criticizing the
government’s handling of the economy, telling reporters in her
first news conference as candidate Aug. 20 that surging consumer
prices are undermining Rousseff’s efforts to reduce inequality.

Slow Inflation

The PSB candidate plans to slow inflation by more than half
to 3 percent during her four-year term if elected in October,
Maria Alice Setubal, an aide responsible for drafting her
platform, said in an interview Aug. 22. Silva would shoot for
the official 4.5 percent inflation target from the start and
support central bank autonomy to set its policies, Setubal said.

“These are good signs: her message to the market is
positive,” Jankiel Santos, chief economist at Banco Espirito
Santo de Investimento in Sao Paulo, said by telephone about
Silva.

The Brazilian central bank isn’t independent by law and the
president has authority to fire its chief. Rousseff’s party
leader, Rui Falcao, said in a May interview that the central
bank has operational autonomy and that elected officials should
have the final say in determining monetary policy.

Neves, 54, said in May that a law granting the central bank
autonomy wasn’t necessary because he would, if elected, ensure
independence to the board members.

Stocks Rise

The Ibovespa index, which has declined 16 percent since
Rousseff entered office, rose for four straight days after the
Datafolha poll was published Aug. 18. It was the first poll this
year to show the incumbent wouldn’t have the majority of votes
needed to avoid an Oct. 26 runoff.

Brazil’s economy is slowing as inflation that has exceeded
target throughout Rousseff’s term causes business and consumer
confidence to erode.

Analysts surveyed by the central bank have cut their 2014
growth forecast for 13 straight weeks, to 0.7 percent. That
would be the weakest performance since the economy contracted in
2009. They forecast the inflation rate will end 2014 at 6.27
percent, the fifth straight year above the official target.

“I’m not one to cheer for the worst -- I hope inflation
won’t be as hard as the market expects, but the government
should do something,” Silva told journalists Aug. 20. “We just
cannot lose the patrimony that we built of controlled inflation.
Unfortunately President Rousseff will be the first president to
deliver a Brazil in worse shape than she got it.”

Expand Welfare

Neves of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party in June
pledged to gradually rein in public spending as part of a policy
to slow Brazil’s inflation to target within three years. He says
he will expand and increase the efficiency of welfare programs
such as the cash transfer initiative Bolsa Familia, which was
created by the Workers’ Party.

The president says her government has consumer prices under
control and that inflation will slow this year. On the day
Silva’s adviser Setubal spoke, Rousseff, 66, said policies to
lower the inflation target would put at risk the kinds of
initiatives that have lifted 36 million Brazilians out of
extreme poverty during her party’s rule.

“Someone who tells you ‘I’m going to reduce the inflation
target’ will have to cut social programs the next day,” the
president told journalists in Rio Grande do Sul state.

Rousseff and Silva have clashed before. As environment
minister under former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Silva
sought tighter regulations for large infrastructure projects
spearheaded by then chief of staff Rousseff.

Belo Monte

While Rousseff wanted to speed up the construction of the
Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, Silva said the environmental
destruction it caused wasn’t worth the energy it generated.
Silva eventually quit Lula’s government and ran against Rousseff
for president in 2010 on the Green Party ticket, placing third
with 19 percent of the vote.

Silva’s popularity increased last year when more than 1
million Brazilians took to the streets to protest against
government corruption, the rising cost of living, slower growth
and government spending decisions, according to Tendencias’s
Cortez. As a political outsider, she gained the protest vote, he
said.

Silva spent her childhood tapping rubber trees in the
Amazon rain forest before working as a maid in Rio Branco. She
says she started to learn to read at age 16 and a decade later
graduated with an undergraduate degree in history. She entered
politics fighting deforestation in the Amazon alongside the
legendary conservationist Chico Mendes, who was assassinated in
1988.

“Marina Silva is a formidable candidate,” Nicholas Spiro,
managing director at Spiro Sovereign Strategy, a London-based
investment consulting firm, said by telephone. “Rousseff can’t
taint her with the neo-liberal brush. She had a dirt poor
childhood and she appeals to the Workers’ Party electorate.”